1. Field of the Invention
This invention is directed to a magnetic tape storage and transport cartridge which contains a finite length of prestressed coiled tape and to the mechanism which employs the cartridge to transport, record on, and read the tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Magnetic tape has been wound on flanged spools for storage and use. On a tape deck utilizing such flanged spools, the tape is unwound from the first spool, on which it has been stored, and is transported across magnetic recording heads, and then is wound up on a new spool. Such spools can handle a long length of tape, but suffer from the disadvantage that the very length of the tape makes it difficult to randomly access the information on the tape. The mass of the tape and the spool is great so that acceleration must be low to prevent damage to the tape.
With the utilization of a housing, the flanges of the spools can be eliminated, as in the modern-day four-track magnetic cassette. Such cassettes and similar structures utilize the external drive of the hubs on which the tape is wound to traverse the tape and to take it up during transport. Such structures also have comparatively high mass and resultant high inertia due to the hubs and the length of the tape wound thereon. Furthermore, storage density is poor because one of the hubs is empty when the other is full.
Present-day structures which utilize tape also include the endless cartridge which relies on the tape feeding into the housing and sinuously moving through the housing. Such has a poor packing density because of the lack of control of the tape in the housing.
Thus, there is need for a magnetic tape storage and transport cartridge which has low mass and inertia in the moving parts and which utilizes its space to the maximum potential for high information packing density.